My other blog is made up of book reports. This one is social commentary not based on particular books.
I could use a better name for this blog if you've got an idea.

"No statement I make...should be interpreted as final and definitive. One or two of them may sound final and definitive...but I won't regard them as such tomorrow, and I wouldn't like you to do so today." ~ Harold Pinter (whoever he is)

Wednesday, May 2

There are about 10 more submissions in my inbox that I haven't read yet, and I have a Firefox-vs-IE check to do, so come back later tonight for updates. I will also compile a list of links to carnivals of interest to feminists (it's grown!)

Update: I'll take this project on later today. My internet access was out all last night.

Kristy at kblog and her partner/roomie "Mr. T" aren't happy with movie offerings and presentation:

"Yes I know that while white males hold plenty of privilege they also may have lots of problems. I'm just sick of watching stories based on their lives, told by them. ... It's easier to fix the white issue, unfortunately there is no section for female movies. Maybe the video store could implement a very small shelf just made up of movies told by female characters.

Personally, I stayed away from the "free speech" and "multiple perspectives" angle, as that doesn't go away with people who think multiple perspectives lead to people committing atrocious, immoral acts against one another. I played to that very fear and wrote about the atrocious, immoral acts teenage boys have been committing--like cell-phone-filmed gang rapes--lately as their exposure to [increasingly violent in the mainstream] porn has been less and less counterbalanced by any exposure to details about consensual, non-hurtful sex.

But feel free to take your own approach.

It's great that Ms. Nakashima put sexualized threats against internet opinion-holders on the front page of the WaPo, but bloggers weren't willing to take any chances! Take Back the Blog was a blogswarm (that means that everyone blogs about one subject and tells the host page that they did so --ed.) against threats--especially sexualized ones--against people--especially people belonging to non-dominant social groups--who express their opinions online.

The Daily Kos is starting to direct its liberally-minded attention towards women's issues.In the last three weeks, in addition to posts directly related to the Supreme Court's decision, at least 3 feminist user diaries stayed on the "Most Recommended Diaries" list all day (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), at least 2 or 3 well-discussed feminist articles appeared on the front page (1, 2), and several interesting feminist user diaries were featured near the tip-top, most attention-getting spot in "diary rescue" articles on the front page (1, 2).Also, Kos himself is taking paternity leave (except for an article or two a week) from the Daily Kos--and in my mind, that's a significant pro-feminist action.

M. Dot at Model Minoritymight have written the most concise summary of what has people calling what Akon did on stage to a woman "sexual assault," generally in feminist circles, and "wrong," generally in the general public. (By the way, I like the suggestion in Pandagon's comments to edit his Wikipedia entry. Just please do be analytical in your writing and reasonable about your sources--you wouldn't want to see links to opinion blogs as the only sources for an opinion about birth control, would you? --ed.)

Fire Fly at She Who Stumbles May Not Fall pointed out in the "Stage" part of The Sex Of Street And Stage that determining the offensiveness of Richard Gere's actions upon Shilpa Shetty by the degree of sexual contact means founding one's argument on the following statement: "Male agency defines and constitutes what is sexual, while women’s agency is a non-issue." Read the post for more well-written points!

Fuck you, people Minneapolis & St. Paul, MN, USA, for getting your asses out of your chairs to rally in support of only one side in a rape case. Fuck you. (More specifically, the side that the good historical assessments show has a higher probability of being the one not telling the truth. Though I do allow for some temperance of that by ideas like Sailorman's on consent understanding types and on "moral rape" and "criminal rape" (like "kill" versus "murder")--but not enough to completely flip the probability!) (Thanks, Yolanda Carrington.)

Sticking overall to "femininity" might be a wonderful thing for a person to do--just check out the feminist speculation about Segolene Royal!But here's a trait currently belonging to "femininity" that I think "feminine" could do without from now on: body hatred (yes, even the jokes we make to show we're reasonably humble--find another subject to demonstrate humility with, please!). Read more about women's relationships with their bodies in Figure'sinterview of Dr. Suzie Orbach.

Lisa Fortuner at Newsarama insisted, "Nobody who wants to see real diversity in any medium wants to support censorship," because apparently it's crucial to convince comic book fans that contentions about representation of social groups and contentions about social issues are not discussions they should keep drowning out with worried posts about censorship.("Contentions:" "analyze, criticize, complain, demand, and generally make a pest of myself," according to Lisa! :-) -ed.)

Economics

John Finney at Growth is Madness(which I believe focuses on both economic and population growth--ed.)drew attention to and commented on Katha Pollitt's feminist post about population growth on Alternet's EnviroHealth.Finney liked Pollitt's piece because she seemed to keep "women's issues" and "population growth issues" separate in her analysis even as she pointed out the ways they can both hurt the same people.The article itself covers Europe's population growth-encouraging policies (many of which make feminists proud) and questions whether those very policies, by causing population growth, are going to hurt women in the end.

Veronica at The Red Threaddescribed her feelings about saving her life via late-term abortion before, while, and after pregnancy and expressed what she thinks the ruling says the 5 judges think of doctors and of women.

KC at Bligbirelated a personal story (that even involves a physician denying birth control to a woman too poor to shop around and get it by any means) as a refutation of bans on Dilate & Extract abortions.

Legal philosophy that, because an assumption != evidence, assuming that alleged rape victims' claims are truthful does not undermine alleged rapists' "innocent until proven guilty" status in a court of law.

"Allowing this 'she was just a 'ho' argument to stand unchallenged is the same as giving rapists a list of who can be raped without fear of prosecution."

Tell me that she was treated respectfully and in a non-frightening manner, but she bolted without her money, and it just doesn't compute....it seems impossible to believe that she wasn't frightened by something....People who think she was seeking revenge for something said or done to her, remember this: she didn't go out and make those accusations. The police were called because of her condition (seeming to be drunk), and it was only after the officer hassled her a bit (the report I found said he used a hold that would be painful if she didn't move as he directed) that she broke out of her shell and said she'd been raped.

This, to me, does not sound like a person trying to get revenge and making up lies. It sounds exactly like a traumatized person coming out of a daze, and reporting what she believed happened....A flashback can seem real, as if it's happening right now....later that night, she then reported to the police what she remembered, as best as she could.

Let me say that again and emphasize it: as best as she could.

It is not a "lie" or a "false accusation" or "revenge" if, having been traumatized once, she was scared, and had a flashback, and couldn't keep the two events separate in her mind. It is the responsibility of the authorities, the police and the prosecutors, to investigate the accusations. Crime victims often misremember the details of what, exactly happened....I'm not going to excuse DA Nifong for what he did, but I will suggest that his motives - not his actions, but his motives - were better than most people believe.

Comments 2-4 on Lauredhel's post are interesting, and the opening sentences of Shannon's response to Lauredhel's post at Egotistical Whining seem to do what tigtog begs for feminists to spend more time on in Comment #2 on Lauredhel's post.

...anything called "porn"...exists only to enthrobulate the fetishization of culturally-generated (and, frankly, comically hokey) constructs. It is readily apparent to the visitor from the planet Obstreperon that these constructs include arbitrary standards of [long list: read the post--ed.]--and that they have, at their root, everything to do with a paradigm of dominance and nothing to do with actual sex between individuals with equivalent personal sovereignty.

What do you think? Does Twisty's list of inclusions in culturally-generated constructs have anything to do with actual sex between individuals with equivalent persnoal sovereignity? Does her list have everything to do with a paradigm of dominance or only "somewhat of something to do" with it?

I would say that whether it can be true for someone or not depends on the person, and that we should encourage people--in a Heinleinian way--to think that 0-10+ other people might "complete" a person! You never know what you'll grow up to be!But then she threw me a curveball--what if someone who is a "completer" feels self-completed yet wants to be in a relationship with the person they allegedly complete? As Edith put it: "Can’t you imagine Jerry’s girlfriend responding with 'That's great Jerry, but I complete me. Would you be okay with that?'"

If someone you know is a gamer and identifies as a girl or woman, send her Cerise Gaming Magazine For Women. It's new. (Oh, and of course think about getting her a subscription to Shameless and cluing her in to the blogs, where people older than the magazine's target audience seem to congregate and converse in the comments section.)

Frank Deford's rant about Title IX on National Public Radio started out like most offensive Title IX rants do, but in the middle he said, "Of course, we can't blame young women for..." and ended with proposals that, while some people might discount them as absurd, feminists have to admit are delightfully free of gendered punishments for people who didn't do anything wrong!

I almost didn't include this, because by the end of the day the event was referred to a counter-terrorism force. However, I do need to hilight this quote to give fellow Christians the same kind of perspective it gave me:

You can bet that people won’t be getting dirty looks for wearing crosses or crucifixes, or for having fish symbols on their car, or saying “God bless you” when someone sneezes. Tomorrow, there won’t be any reports of a group of priests being arrested for praying in an airport.

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